Permission for the £25m Brentwood Centre redevelopment was issued on 18 September. Three floodlit 3G pitches and a 900 sqm gym in, squash and boxing out.
Update, 19 September 2026. Permission has been granted. Brentwood Borough Council’s Planning Committee approved application 26/00465/FUL at its meeting on Tuesday 15 September, and the decision notice was issued on Friday 18 September. The permission runs to 18 September 2029 (Brentwood Borough Council planning register).
Planning permission is not the end of it. The council says officers will now complete a final round of cost and value for money checks, with a full business case due at the Assets and Strategy Committee in October 2026, before the council enters a final delivery agreement with the operator, Everyone Active. The council is also working towards up to £2m of Football Foundation grant funding towards the new 3G pitches, with a decision expected shortly. It says the centre will stay open through most of the work (Brentwood Borough Council, 17 September 2026).
Nothing in the council’s statement changes what the officer report said about the squash courts and the boxing club room, set out below. Neither is replaced in the approved scheme.
The account below was published on 12 September, before the committee met, and is left as written.
The Brentwood Centre’s £25m redevelopment reaches Planning Committee on Tuesday 15 September, and officers are recommending approval. The application would bring three floodlit 3G pitches and a 900 square metre gym to Doddinghurst Road. It would also demolish the squash courts and the room the boxing club uses, neither of which is replaced in the scheme (officer report, application 26/00465/FUL).
The applicant is the council itself, which is why the application goes to committee rather than being decided by officers. The meeting starts at 7pm in the Council Chamber at the Town Hall on Ingrave Road, and is broadcast live.
What would be built
The site runs to 18.35 hectares on the eastern side of Doddinghurst Road, just past the A12 underpass, and it sits in the Metropolitan Green Belt. Brentwood Town Football Club’s pitch is outside the application boundary and is not part of the scheme.
The proposal, in the officer report’s terms:
- demolish the north western part of the existing building and replace it with a 2,182 square metre extension, 242 square metres larger than what comes down, a 12.5% increase in footprint
- build three new floodlit 3G artificial grass pitches on grassland to the north, with cut and fill to level the ground
- turn the existing 7-a-side pitches into extra car parking and a landscaped pedestrian route to the new pitches
- refurbish the hardstanding east of the building as a new event arrival space, with new cladding to match the extension
- plant 71 new trees, against the removal of two individual trees and a group of Leyland cypress
The new extension would be taller than the buildings it replaces, but no taller than the existing International Hall.
What goes, and what replaces it
This is the part of the report that matters to anyone who uses the centre. The council’s own schedule of what is in the demolition zone, and whether it returns:
| Space | In the new building? |
|---|---|
| Aerobic studio | Replaced, within Studio 1 |
| Fitness suite | Replaced |
| Spin studio | Replaced |
| Physio suite | Replaced |
| Podiatry clinic | Replaced |
| Squash courts | Not replaced |
| Boxing club | Not replaced |
| Broadcasting area (Phoenix FM) | Not replaced |
Source: officer report, section 6.27.
The extension would also add a spa and a football club changing area.
Outside, the development takes or reconfigures 2.38 hectares of the 7.65 hectare playing field site. The existing small-sided 3G pitch and the beach volleyball court both go. The grass football pitches are retained at their current dimensions, on a reconfigured layout.
Why the squash courts and the boxing room go
The report gives a reason for each, and they are different reasons.
Squash. There are two courts and they take about 200 visits a month. The applicant’s agent says replacement courts were considered, but that given the participation level, the alternatives elsewhere in the borough and the need to serve a wider range of activities, they were not judged the most effective use of space. The report names Old Brentwoods Squash Club and Brentwood School as the alternatives, and says the applicant is helping existing users move.
Boxing. The room the club uses was made by converting two disused squash courts, and the agent describes it as a short-term solution while the club looked for a permanent base. The report says the space was not designed for boxing, has limited capacity and has insufficient ventilation. The council has identified possible relocation sites, but the report is clear that “the final decision rests with the club”.
Phoenix FM. The community radio station’s broadcasting area is not replaced either. The report records that the station has already moved out of the Brentwood Centre, into alternative accommodation at Thorndon Country Park.
Mixed martial arts. The MMA club’s space is in the part of the building being refurbished rather than demolished, so it falls outside this application. The report says the applicant has identified a possible alternative location and that discussions are continuing.
Sport England first lodged a holding objection over the loss of facilities. After the applicant supplied more information it withdrew that objection and now raises none, subject to conditions, concluding that the sporting benefits outweigh the loss.
The case for the 3G pitches
The borough’s Local Football Facilities Plan, published in 2025, found a need for five additional full-size 3G pitches in Brentwood, and identified the Brentwood Centre itself, jointly with Essex FA, as one of the optimal sites for a strategic football hub. The report argues the new pitches would take pressure off grass pitches in bad weather, allow midweek training, and support the growth of women’s and girls’ football.
What people said
The council wrote to 143 properties, posted site notices and ran a press advert. By the time the report was written it had received two letters: one objecting, one in support.
The objection asked for the overflow car park near Brentwood Town Football Club to be resurfaced as part of the works, and for the football club to be consulted on the grass pitches and the land ringfenced for a future extension. The letter of support welcomed the renovation and the biodiversity net gain.
Earlier engagement was wider. Leaflets went to 3,855 local residents and businesses between 21 January and 8 February 2026, with a consultation event at the centre on 26 January. That produced 200 responses, 59 written at the event and 141 online. Common themes included requests to keep the boxing club and the martial arts facilities, and to add padel and other racquet sports.
The money, and the bit that is not settled
A separate report to the Assets and Strategy Committee the following day, Wednesday 16 September, sets out where the project stands financially. The gross project budget for the whole scheme is £25 million (Brentwood Centre Project Update Report).
Three things are still open:
- The Football Foundation grant. The council is assuming £2 million towards the football pitches and the facilities that serve them. The Football Foundation board meets on 17 September to confirm the allocation.
- The contract. Sports and Leisure Management Limited, trading as Everyone Active, ran a single-stage tender for the main works and received three bids. The report says further cost efficiency and risk work is needed before a final recommendation, and that the council has not yet entered the delivery agreement.
- The final business case. Officers want an additional committee meeting in October to approve it before any contract is signed.
The centre is expected to stay open during the works, which the report lists as one of the project’s principal risks.
What it means for you
If you play squash at the Brentwood Centre or train at the boxing club, this is the decision that affects you, and the council’s position is that it will help you move rather than rebuild what you use. If you play football, the case runs the other way: three full-size floodlit pitches where there are currently 7-a-side pitches is a substantial gain, and the grass pitches survive at full size.
For everyone else, three practical points:
- Nothing is demolished on Tuesday. Planning permission is the first of several gates. The contract is not signed, and the October report is the one that commits the money.
- Parking changes both ways. The scheme adds car parking where the 7-a-side pitches are now, but construction on a live site will affect access while it runs.
- The grant is not confirmed. £2 million of the £25 million rests on a Football Foundation board decision two days after the planning meeting.
Other applications in the borough are covered on our Brentwood planning news page, and the centre itself is listed on our things to do in Brentwood page.
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